You feel it in a leaking roof and heavy breaths. You learn fake bones, eating away at your mind. You're older and you're weaker now, void of the familiar presence of those blue vaporous beings who once called you king.

You're Ren Kouen, exiled and fading.

Night descends swiftly, greeting you with dreams of charred corpses and fiery towers and poisoned smoke. You wake up with shadows under your eyes. Koumei's footsteps pad around the room, almost silent but not quite, and for a second you mistake the dust under his broom for ashes.

You lie back, mapping water stains in the ceiling, and let the incessant squawks of gulls mock your grief.

You've always known those roaring flames were just the beginning. Of life with a she-monster whose face could turn men to stone. Of your puppet father playing into her puppeteer hands. Of watching the whole court gyrate to her every whim with the gracefulness of a crumpled leaf. Day and night her coquettish laughter fills the courtyard, and you hate her, you hate her, you hate this masked black widow spinning her web of double-faced silk with the palace at the epicenter and threads that sink into the farthest reaches of the world.

It gets harder and harder to protect what's left.

That day when Kougyoku parades through the courtyard with the sea's powers coiled in her ruby locks, you can't help thinking, what if, a decade ago, all that water could have stopped the fire. They could still be alive, they could still be alive, but you know they wouldn't, because their mother is the most cunning monster to ever walk the earth. So you swallow it all, your hate, your pride, your thirst for revenge, and make your home among monsters.

One day you meet a boy from Balbadd. He's a prince and he's a slave (for a gladiator is essentially a warrior in chains) and he asks you why you live like this.

You answer. He's naïve, yes he is, yet beneath that inexperience, you can tell he's made of stronger stuff. He's no diamond, certainly not, but he won't crack either. So you invite him to the glamorous pretense of your life.

Be my right-hand man, you command, and he accepts. He'll marry Kougyoku.

You begin to plan for war.

A great battle awaits, the worst and bloodiest ever in Kou history. The fate of an entire nation is at stake. Should you win? Can you? Kou is split in two, in three. You and Gyokuen's ghosts and Hakuryuu. Turns out there's another player, the King of Sindria. (When you first met on the outskirts of Magnostadt, you knew that he could be the one to ruin your plans.) In an unexpected twist of events –Hakuei betrayed you…betrayed…betrayed you - Sinbad turns the tide of battle in his favor. He brings the mighty forces of Kou to their knees and defeats you all. Hakuryuu doesn't have a clue.

They say your life flashes before you in your last moments. You're the exception. Even with Hakuryuu's sword nicking your throat, you only see them. Their deaths that should never have been, those you could not protect.

Time resets.

Long ago, there was a great fire in the palace and you died. You died, yes you did, but you did not die and you had to live and now you're not dead either.

All that remains is the clapping of sandals on termite-infested floorboards, the acknowledgement of here and now. Fish for breakfast, fish in the heat of midday, fish to salute the twilight. Smoked fish, fried fish, steamed fish, burned fish. Your taste buds crave the memory of lamb and mutton, but all you see are slimy finned creatures that your defected magi abhorred with such passion.

It doesn't matter, you think, as you watch your brothers ladle out thin moringa soup like some annual delicacy. A refugee's life suits them better than you expected. They seem – dare you say it – content with their lot, at least for now.

Winds are ever changing. Yellow blooms into your vision, curry and egg yolk atop a youth's head. It's nice to meet a familiar face, you tell him, but you're three years too late!

He laughs. He calls you an old geezer and you whack him on the leg with your cane.

I'm not dead yet, you grit out, and you believe it this time.

The gross clamor of sea gulls picks up again. You ask him if he can come up with a foolproof technique to shut them up for good. He stares at you as if you've lost it.

A chuckle escapes your lips. You just figured something out, something important, something you've seen in Koumei, in Kouha, in everyone but yourself.

You feel it in the harsh breeze, in the breakers resounding on the pebble-strewn shore.

Living doesn't sound too bad after all.